The Watermans Arms, Hersham

I have stayed at this pub for a lttle over a year. This is a great place. The management are very friendly, the food is excellent and the rooms are first class. The locals are very friendly, and I have had many happy hours with most of them. They have a jazz night on Wednesdays where a local band just roll up and play to their hearts content. I commend this pub to anyone, and is in an ideal location being only about two miles from the A3 and fifteen minutes walk from either Walton or Hersham stations where trains are readily available to transport you into Waterloo in just about twenty minutes.
I will definately be back here. And just to prove that I am not biased, read my comments about the Hautboy at Ockham. That place was a disaster!

23 Apr 2009 10:41

The Hautboy Inn, Ockham

This establishment has done a favour to the community. It has now closed down.

12 Dec 2007 07:08

The Hautboy Inn, Ockham

Having stayed at this hotel regularly several evenings each week for the last two years I consider my input to be constructive. The location is superb, with ample car parking. The food is generally good, but can vary with each chef. I will omit to enlarge too much on the fact that they cannot warm up croissants, only turn them black. Neither will I enlarge on the fact that if you tell them several times you do not like lettuce, they always give you a plate full. There is a good selection of beers and lagers on hand. The staff are generally quite friendly. What then is the downside? Over the last six months they have lost two managers Matthew and David, together with numerous chefs and staff. They unfortunately have a serious lacking in the customer or punter department. Invariably I have been the only person eating or drinking and sometimes even the only person staying there. It is rumoured they have a resident ghost, but I have not seen it, as quite frankly there is hardly anyone there to haunt!
They have at present one manager (Tim) who also acts as the bar manager, plus a temporary woman manager (Denise) who has arrived it would appear, to �sort out� the place.
She is a complete waste of space and has sorted me out, instead of some of the poor quality staff. It is far worse since she arrived. Supervision appears to be totally lacking. I lost count the number of times I would arrive in the evening from the office to find that although my room had been �serviced�, either the bed was unmade and/or the towels were either not changed or left in a pile. On at least one occasion even the toilet had been used and not flushed. The last straw was in fact this week. I arrived as usual on Monday evening at around 1800 hrs. I walked into my room which appeared clean, until I walked into the bathroom. There was a soiled towel just hanging on a hook at the back of the door, but the horror was yet to unfold. I raised the toilet lid to discover the evidence of some previous persons experience with diarrhoea all over the toilet. This was after a room had been serviced. I immediately called the duty manager, (Tim) who visibly embarrassed, said they need professional cleaning staff, and not the staff they had. As this was my last week at the establishment I decided that if this was the visible state of the rooms, then I would not be taking any further meals here as I would not be able to asses the state of the kitchen or food preparation.
It was intimated to me on one occasion that certain people used the hotel in the afternoons for a little �light relief, or afternoon delight�. I did begin to wonder if my room had in fact been serviced and the result followed these actions.
The car park is quite large and for a while in 2006 was subjected to a regular series of break-ins to the vehicles. It was only a matter of time before mine was a casualty. Following this I requested the car park lights be used with some form of regularity. This sounds simple enough, but unfortunately was far too complicated for this establishment to organise. Whenever Tim was not there, nothing appeared to function, and would always be on hold until he came back. On the last occasion as he was leaving for two days off, he assured me that he had set the timer and all was ok, and all the staff knew how to operate the timer etc. Less then two hours later, the lights went out, and the staff on duty did not have a clue. I was told by the chef the following day that he had to reset the timer. Needless to say if there are break-ins, they will no doubt take place in the dark. I am already being called as a witness to one court case as I witnessed the felon actually in the process of breaking into several vehicles on the car park. Break-ins are not just limited to the vehicles. The hotel has been burgled many times since I arrived. The last time the safe was taken containing some �3,000 which had only been put in there some hours earlier. It was considered to be an inside job, and I have no reason to think otherwise, as money apparently was never normally left in that safe. They have a night porter who can make one hell of a racket at around 0200 hrs in the morning, but on my way out at 0545 hrs I can walk past him fast asleep on the bench in hotel lobby where he is making a racket snoring.
Just to show I do not complain unnecessarily, I have even repaired the toilet cistern in my room in the past, knowing that if I did not, nothing would happen until �Tim came back�
I have dubbed the place �Faulty Towers�, as nothing appears to function correctly, and I have recently realised that similar to Faulty Towers, complaining is not allowed. Owing to the fact that I have been living there for some two years suffering the above and complaining, it appears that I have upset some of the staff and have been advised by Miss Denise to seek alternative accommodation. The fact that the staff in question do not do the job correctly, and are not chastised for this by management would tend to leave the punter, (me in this instance) exposed as a pain. I have therefore found better accommodation and therefore have no hesitation in describing the Hautboy to anyone who wishes to stay in the area. My logic is you have to find out for yourself! If you have been used to five star hotels, then have a stay in the Hautboy and see how the other half live.
I could write a book on this place!

25 Sep 2007 12:22